


Tannenbaum Bounty and the Scientific Method

by blythechild



Series: Gift Stories 2012 [2]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Christmas, Established Relationship, Family, Kid Fic, M/M, Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 09:17:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/596053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas morning at the Hotchner household isn't your average one. Thanks to Spencer Reid, there's science involved.</p><p> </p><p>This is a gift story based on a prompt that requested a Christmas scene between Hotch, Reid, and Jack. This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. This story is suitable for all audiences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tannenbaum Bounty and the Scientific Method

**Author's Note:**

> This story is for blackcat (on livejournal). Thanks for the prompt!

Hotch rolled over in the darkness and stretched his muscles for a long moment. He rubbed his eyes and blinked as the dark slowly adjusted to a blue-tinged twilight thanks to the small night light near the door. He craned his head back and peered up at the window above his bed. An indigo sky twinkled intermittently and he heard the wind whistling in the eaves.

 _It’s snowing._

He remembered a night from decades before in rural Virginia when he and Sean had awoken in the middle of a brilliant snowstorm that had buried their great aunt’s house in eight feet of snow. Still young enough to view the situation as an opportunity to play, they had put their snowsuits on over their pajamas and gone out into the pre-dawn storm to make a snow fort. He remembered how quiet the yard was, how clean everything looked without footprints and mud… They stayed out until the sun rose and their cheeks were frozen, noses running and eyes bright with mischief. When their dad found out, Hotch had paid dearly, but in his memory he chose to edit that part out. He didn’t have many fond memories of his childhood but he held this one close, even if it wasn’t entirely true. Everyone deserves a few special moments…

_It’s snowing and it’s Christmas._

He smiled and closed his eyes again. Jack would be so excited…

His eyes snapped open and he looked over at the bedside clock. 

5:37a.m.

It was far too quiet in his house. He looked over to the other side of the bed and realized for the first time that he was alone. A well-honed suspicion of anomalies caused his stomach muscles to tighten into a nervous knot and his body sprang alive with movement. It’s Christmas morning… there’s just no way that Jack could have restrained himself from waking his father before now…

He nearly ran to Jack’s room but became distracted by the glow that he saw coming from below as he approached the stairs. He stilled himself for a moment as he heard whispers coming from the same direction. He carefully crept downstairs, mindful of the squeaky boards that might give him away. As he reached the second last stair, the living room came into view. It glowed as the Christmas tree blinked and twinkled. Jack suddenly popped up from behind a chair with a present his hands. And a tape measure.

“It’s a stegosaurus.” He stage-whispered.

“It’s a dog.” A lanky, disheveled silhouette walked into view between Hotch and Jack. The shadow bent forward and took some quick calculations with the tape measure while Jack held the gift still for him. “The dimensions make a dog a more likely, and you’ve been harassing your dad for one anyway…”

“But dogs and stegosauruses have the same dimminentions… Dad knows that I like stegosauruses too.” Jack’s little brow furrowed.

“Dimensions. They _are_ similarly shaped, and yes, your love of dinosaurs is well known… you make a compelling argument, though my money’s on ‘dog’. The evidence is equivocal - mark it on the chart.”

Jack handed Reid the present and the tape measure before quickly grabbing a marker and disappearing out of view. Hotch cocked an eyebrow and descended the last two steps and hovered near the doorway to get a better view of the scene. Jack stood before a large piece of craft paper taped to the hearth, his marker poised over it. He hesitated and then looked back at Reid.

“Equa-octal means question mark, right?”

“Equivocal, and yes, mark it as a question.” Reid smiled a little as he whispered.

Jack made a mark under a column that had a question mark above it. Other columns were labeled ‘S’ and ‘J’, and rows were labeled ‘Pre-wrapping’ and ‘Post-wrapping’ in Reid’s spidery script. There were plenty of ticks in each column - they had been at this for a while. Hotch suppressed a grin and fixed a mock scowl to his face instead.

“What’s going on here?” He said with authority.

Both Jack and Reid turned and faced him with identical looks of guilt. If a sign suddenly appeared above their heads, it would’ve said ‘BUSTED’. It was delightful.

“Hi Daddy.” Jack waved.

“Jack was really excited about his presents.” Reid spoke quickly. “I explained to him that you needed your rest and that we couldn’t open anything without you, but we could analyze them and guess what was inside.”

“What’s the chart for?”

“It’s gonna tell us who wins.” Jack chirped.

“Wins?” Hotch turned to Reid who now looked less guilty and more sleep-deprived.

“We each made guesses and then evaluated the likelihood of their validity. Whoever had a greater chance of being correct received a mark. The question column is basically an allowance for standard deviation where both of our guesses held equal validity.”

“Equivocal!” Jack yelled.

“Yes!” Reid smiled and gave Jack a thumbs-up. “When we have unwrapped everything, we’ll re-evaluate our guesses. Whoever gets the most correct guesses wins and the loser has to help clean up and put everything away. I find that these things work out better if there are real stakes riding on the outcome…”

Hotch stared at Reid for a moment. “Are you trying to turn my son into a scientist?”

Reid stared back. “Better that than someone who sneaks around darkened homes coveting other people’s possessions. We both know where that leads.”

Hotch’s stare broke first. He smiled and flicked his eyes from Reid to Jack, who was giggling fiendishly now that it was clear that he wasn’t in trouble. Hotch stepped towards Reid and whispered.

“When I woke up and you weren’t there and I couldn’t hear Jack… I panicked a little.”

Reid’s eyes widened in understanding and he quickly moved closer to Hotch. “I-I’m sorry… I didn’t think…”

“It’s okay, Spencer. I overreacted. This is the cutest thing that I’ve seen in some time.”

“Mom and I used to do this. On the times when she remembered where Christmas was supposed to happen…”

Reid’s voice faded as he watched Jack and Hotch thought about how different Reid’s childhood memories were from just about any definition of ‘normal’. It didn’t seem fair that every good memory he had of life with Diana was tinged by the complications of her mental illness. _Everyone_ deserved some special moments… Hotch’s hand unconsciously found its way to the back of Reid’s neck and began to gently massage it.

“Daddy, can we open presents now? Since you’re awake…”

“Sure, buddy. I don’t imagine that you’ll let me go back to sleep for a while, will you?”

“No.” Jack grinned and danced back and forth with excitement.

“Jack, why don’t you sort the gifts into piles - one pile for each of us, okay? You already know how many of them are for you…” Reid reached out to take Jack’s marker and then the little boy dived at the pile of presents under the tree.

Reid turned back towards Hotch and whispered.

“I’m exhausted.”

“You look it. How long have you been at this, anyway?”

“He woke me at 3:30. I didn’t want him to wake you… he was just so wound up.”

“You’re really good with him, you know. It’s sexy.”

“Really?”

Reid looked genuinely clueless as Hotch pulled him closer for a soft kiss. His hand slid up into Reid’s hair and the moan that it elicited was more felt than heard. Reid breathed into Hotch’s neck as the two men leaned against one another from shoulders to hips.

“If only I had known that from the beginning.” Reid murmured. “It would’ve made my cunning plan to get at your heart so much easier.”

“You didn’t need a cunning plan. You just needed to show up.” Hotch smiled and rubbed the back of Reid’s neck again.

“Well, in that case, perhaps I could leverage my child care affinity to some other purpose?”

“Like what?”

Reid looked up at Hotch, his eyes bright in spite of the purple circles beneath them. “I’d kill for some coffee right now.”

“Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that.” Hotch chuckled and headed for the kitchen.

After he had set the coffee maker to its business, he watched Reid and Jack sort presents from the pass-through into the living room. They were on their hands and knees, heads together, stacking brightly coloured parcels with careful precision. Warmth flooded his chest and it reminded him of a memory.

“Hey guys, it’s been snowing all night. What do you say to making a snow fort after breakfast?”

The boys looked back at him, their hair showing equal amounts of bedhead.

“Do we have any wheat paste?” Reid asked.

“Pardon?”

“Depending on the ambient temperature outside, amount of sunlight, depth, density, and molecular cohesion of the snow pack, we may need to structurally re-enforce the foundation and the tunnel with a bonding agent.”

“Tunnel?!” _Engineer,_ Hotch huffed inwardly.

“You can’t have a snow fort without a tunnel. Everyone knows that.”

“Yeah, Dad!”

Reid turned back to sorting the tree as Jack cheered and pestered him for snow fort facts that were happily given.

“Of course. What was I thinking?” Hotch said to himself as he turned back to the machine that would provide the elixir to power scientific games, snow fort construction, and the accidental creation of his best Christmas memory ever.


End file.
